


The Monkey

by MagicalStardust



Series: How to treat your daemon [1]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Because Marisa is all about keeping people at arms' length, Daemon-Harm, F/F, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mostly pre-Maryisa, Self-Harm, because it is the best ship, but then it becomes Maryisa, haven't read the books but I doubt Mary and Marisa end up living together at the end of book 3 :(, much angst, probably AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28408590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalStardust/pseuds/MagicalStardust
Summary: Based on Bisqueits's post on Tumblr:'okay hear me out- a comic of Marisa x Mary, where the golden monkey knocks down Marisa’s coffee or something right in front of Mary, and Marisa’s instinct is to go hurt him, but she catches herself mid-way when Mary looks at her concerned and she just brushes it off'I rolled with it and then made it 5 billion times angstier.You're welcome?
Relationships: Marisa Coulter & Marisa Coulter's Daemon, Marisa Coulter/Mary Malone, Mary Malone & Marisa Coulter's Daemon
Series: How to treat your daemon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088591
Comments: 25
Kudos: 92





	The Monkey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bisqueits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bisqueits/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [Le singe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28862919) by [MagicalStardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalStardust/pseuds/MagicalStardust)



> Hello all!  
> I hope you enjoy this, I am loving all the Maryisa content so here is my contribution!  
> (I confess I am behind on reading fics because of christmas obligations, but I am hyped for getting caught up on it all so I'm gonna do that once I've posted this)  
> Credit for the original plotbunny goes to Bisqueits (.tumblr.com/post/637554695540555776/).  
> I've called the Monkey 'Oz' - unsure if I should be crediting anyone in particular for that or if lots of people have decided that Monkey is called Oz - do let me know if I need to credit someone.
> 
> Please, please heed the tags. Trigger warning for self harm (because Marisa hurts her daemon (herself) and herself). There is nothing I would consider gorey (ie. use of blades - because that massively triggers me - I can't read it let alone write it), however there is non-gorey self-harm so just please, take care of yourselves!
> 
> 29/12/2020

Mary first got a feeling that something wasn’t right between Marisa and her daemon on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

Well, that wasn’t quite true, upon asking her why the monkey never talked (when sometimes it seemed Pan never shut up) Marisa had stared at her coldly and replied, “he knows better”. That had been concerning, very concerning, but Marisa hadn’t allowed her to probe any further.

So, it would be more accurate to say that this was the first time she had actually observed anything which backed up her suspicions that something was wrong.

They were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and reading through academic journals, when the monkey jumped up on the table to join them and knocked Marisa’s coffee mug to the floor. It shattered. Loudly.

A movement out of the corner of her eye took Mary’s concerned gaze away from the cringing (and terrified?) monkey to Marisa, whose hand was arcing through the air towards her daemon. Then her eyes met Mary’s and her hand froze.

She appeared momentarily uncertain (not that anyone apart from Mary, who spent almost every day with her in the lab and at home, would have been able to tell), before morphing her features into an irritated expression and gently pushing her daemon towards the mess.

“Just clean it up,” she muttered.

It was when the monkey had hopped down off the table and was reaching towards one of the shards that Mary snapped out of her trance and jumped into action.

“Hey, stop that!” she said, spinning round, opening the kitchen cupboard, and pulling out a dustpan and brush. “You’ll hurt yourself like that, see.” She knelt down next to the monkey, tense and looking at her distrustfully, and held out the brush to him.

“Pff, he’ll be fine,” Marisa said dismissively from above her.

Mary ignored her and held the dustpan down on the floor next to the shards. “Look, you take this and brush the shards into here, I’ll hold it in place for you.”

The daemon gingerly reached out and took the brush from her. She smiled at him in encouragement and he looked down before using both hands to sweep the shards up into the pan. Luckily, Marisa had finished up the coffee before he had knocked the mug off, and the mug, though being of an elegant design that thoroughly suited Marisa, didn’t really have any emotional value.

Mary frowned as she watched the monkey.

It seemed that Marisa had tried to hit him, but why? The monkey hadn’t done anything particularly serious, and why would she have tried to hurt the other half of her? More to the point, hadn’t Lyra told her that if one party got injured the other would feel their pain? Hurting her daemon would have hurt Marisa too, wouldn’t it?

So, what had that been? Had Marisa done it without thinking, so absorbed in her work she hadn’t really been in tune with the world around her? Or was it instinct, habit, that had only been stopped by Mary’s presence? Mary sighed, clearly she needed to think some more on this.

She smiled as the monkey got the last few shards into the pan and reached out instinctively, giving him an affectionate scratch behind the ear. The monkey froze and Marisa let out a gasp, and Mary hesitated, wondering if she’d done something wrong, before the monkey nuzzled its head into her hand. Mary relaxed and continued carding her fingers through the golden fur.

Mary, Marisa thought, had absolutely no idea how to treat a daemon.

She was constantly petting Oz, allowing him to snuggle up close to her when they watched the 10 o’clock news, treating him as if he were something to be cherished and not an abomination. It was bad enough that it sent jolts throughout her body when someone who wasn’t her touched her soul, but yesterday she had come downstairs to find Oz and Mary sitting companiably at the table, Mary surrounded by her work and Oz by coloured pens and paper. Not only had Mary given her daemon art supplies, she had also stuck some of his scribbles up on the fridge with her ridiculous magnets.

Marisa had tried to reason with Mary, but she wasn’t having it, stating that she liked his ‘art’ (mess, more like), she was very proud of him, and he deserved to have his work displayed.

Of course, Marisa had made it clear to him later that such behaviour was unacceptable, but, she mused as Oz lay whimpering quietly under her bed and she tried to stop the tremors in her arms and cut herself off from her daemon, who knew what good it would do. She had shouted at and punished him multiple times for snuggling with Mary and practically begging for the other woman’s affection, but that had never done anything. Clearly, the daemon saw Mary’s tenderness as being worth Marisa’s displeasure, and, a small part of her that she quashed down thought she understood. Sometimes she wondered what it would feel like to lie on the sofa, snuggled comfortably in Mary’s arms, how nice it would be. But no, she couldn’t risk thoughts like that.

Her daemon had always, always, been a problem.

So many things that had hurt her could have been avoided if he had just not existed. Not only was he a constant embarrassment, he was a threat to her safety.

Her mother had never liked getting her hands dirty. No, whenever she had needed to punish Marisa she had set her Hyena on Oz, and Marisa had screamed and writhed on the floor until she had eventually learned to cut herself off from her daemon so she wouldn’t have to feel the pain.

And, more often than not, after one of her father’s dinner parties, she would be on the receiving end of one of his heavy-handed slaps because Oz had forgotten himself again, he had shifted between his forms, or tried talking to her, messed around and brought attention to them both.

Daemons, her father had reminded her, were the embodiment of Sin. They were unwanted, a temptation, to be tolerated and controlled, not coddled. They were not a friend.

“Shut up!” she had hissed ferociously at Oz one night as she lay in bed, pushing back the tears stinging her wild eyes. “Nobody wants to hear your voice, nobody cares. You’re nothing, do you hear me, nothing!”

Oz had whined and had tried to snuggle against her, but she had shoved him away, rolling over and shutting her emotions down. It was easier to live when you didn’t have to feel anything.

Mary smiled as she went up the stairs, the hallway and landing smelt of the richly scented candles that Marisa favoured.

“Hey,” she said as she knocked on Marisa’s bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

“You may.”

“Did you have a nice bath?” Mary asked as she opened the door.

“Yes - your ‘bath bomb’, wine, candles, just what I needed after that insufferable man at work today,” replied Marisa, smiling up at her from where she was leant against the pillows at her bedstead, reading. But something seemed… off.

“Glad to hear it,” Mary said, deciding it was easier to take her at her word, and held out her phone. “You can pick what you want from the takeaway, I’m sure neither of us can be bothered to cook after today.”

It was as Marisa reached out for the phone with her right hand that Mary gasped, pulled the phone away, and grabbed Marisa’s wrist with her other hand.

“What did you do to yourself?” she asked, eying the bright red burn mark on Marisa’s palm.

“Nothing!” Marisa snarled, snatching her hand away.

“It doesn’t look li-”

“It was an accident!”

“Right, well, it doesn’t really seem-”

The next second Mary found herself practically thrown out the room by a feral Marisa, staring at Marisa’s locked door and wondering what had happened.

She allowed herself to catch her breath. She needed to figure out how to approach this, and something was clearly wrong, and that something was apparently a no-go area for Marisa.

There came a sound from the region of her ankle, and she looked down, the monkey was staring up at her, forlorn.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go down and order. You can point to what Marisa likes.”

Marisa stared at the door she had just locked and breathed heavily.

She had got too carried away in the bath earlier, gulping down the wine, surrounded by the candles. She should have burned her arm or something, something that could have been covered. Now Mary knew, or at least suspected, what she’d done. Stupid! Stupid!

Marisa screamed, picked up her wine glass, and hurled it at the wall. It shattered in a satisfying way, drops of red splattering the walls like blood, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more wine. She looked towards the bottle. It was empty.

Wonderful.

She collapsed backwards onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling.

What was she doing here?

She shouldn’t be here, she should leave, she had become far too comfortable around Mary. Being around the scientist felt natural now, so she hadn’t been watching her behaviour as much as she should have, she’d been forgetting that she’s not alone, that this wasn’t her house.

How embarrassing.

She sighed and tried to pull herself together.

The warmth of the alcohol swirled round her head.

No, she couldn’t go. If she tried to strike out on her own she’d lose Lyra. She hadn’t seen her daughter in months now, and who knew when she would ever get to see her again, but Lyra had made it clear that if Marisa wanted to have any part in her life she needed to get herself together, become a decent and functioning member of society, understand what it was she had done wrong, and show genuine remorse for her actions.

And Marisa had agreed. Lyra was safe with the people she was with now, and she had to admit that it was preferable to spend time with her daughter when her daughter didn’t hate her and wasn’t constantly trying to escape from her. At least this way Lyra and her might have a future together.

So, Lyra had talked to Mary, and told Marisa she’d be staying with Mary, who would assess her progress in becoming a decent person. Marisa had felt a twinge of annoyance at this, she didn’t like sharing her living space with other people, and who did Mary think she was?

But, she had to admit, living with Mary was nice. She liked eating breakfast with her, getting coffee with her, doing science with her. And she was now working with Mary at the university, studying to get a phD that would actually be recognised, she would have the ‘Dr’ in front of her name that she had always deserved, just like Mary and her other colleagues did.

Of course, when she had learnt that she was to be living with Mary she had had to seriously tone down the flirting, wrapping the woman around her finger, watching Mary awkwardly trying not to stare at her lips (wondering what it would feel like to press her lips against Mary’s). Relationships were dangerous, unstable, likely to implode at any minute, they never lasted, she couldn’t risk anything, not when her future in this world, her future with Lyra, depended on their living arrangement working.

And it was working, she was becoming a better person, just how Lyra had wanted. She hadn’t made any undergraduates cry in over a week, and that was a record that definitely proved she was improving.

The only problem was, she wasn’t sure if, even if she did manage to improve her interpersonal relations, she could ever get to where Lyra wanted her to be. Not completely.

If, for example, she allowed herself to process all of her emotions (like Lyra wanted her to), like a normal person, instead of supressing them, how would she cope with Bolvanger? People like Lyra and Mary would probably drown in the guilt, unable to continue on with their lives if they had killed that many children. And Lyra wanted her to become that kind of person! So, either she needed to keep that part of the brain that deemed experimenting on and killing children to be wrong supressed, or, she needed to continue in her belief that she had been justified as daemons were the cause of Dust and Sin and she had been saving those children, and trying to save the children of the future. She didn’t have any other option. Lyra couldn’t ask her to stop both.

It was totally logical.

She would never see Lyra, would she?

She sat up angrily to take another mouthful of wine.

She remembered she didn’t have any left.

She let out a groan of annoyance and pressed down on the burn on her palm. Then she lay down again and allowed her head to swirl.

Daemons were wrong, Oz was wrong, but she didn’t know how to get Mary to see that. The way Mary had looked at her when she had gone to slap Oz in the kitchen sprung to mind. She was glad she had caught Mary’s expression before she had gone through with it. Mary might have got some stupid ideas (stupider than she had already – helping Oz clear up, giving him coloured pens – what was she thinking?) and it would have been embarrassing to have been seen punishing her daemon. That was the kind of thing you did behind closed doors.

She groaned again.

She really wanted more wine.

Maybe she could brave Mary and go down and get some. Being downstairs didn’t mean she had to talk to the woman or answer any of her questions.

Mind made up she got to her feet, wobbling slightly on the way to the door.

“What are you doing?” Marisa asked. The clock on the oven flashed 04:17am. Oz was asleep on the table, on top several piles of Mary’s papers.

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep,” Mary explained as Marisa filled her glass with water from the kitchen tap. “Too stressed about the grant application, too stressed to fill it in, you know how it is. Anyway, I was looking at enrichments in monkey habitats in the zoo, and I decided that your daemon doesn’t really have enough things to swing on or hang off so I’ve been designing an obstacle course for him for the kitchen.”

Marisa decided that she couldn’t be bothered to deign that with a response. She turned around and went back up to bed.

Mary was sat at the table next to the monkey. She was finishing off her grant application and he was watching on with great interest.

“Can you read?” Mary asked suddenly.

The monkey looked at her hesitantly, as if weighing up his options, before nodding.

“Super, do you think this bit makes sense then?” She gestured to the line she was working on.

Oz tilted his head to the side, studying the line, before nodding.

“Brilliant, thanks.” Mary went to type again but her hands froze over the keyboard. “If you can read, does that mean you can write too?”

The monkey shook his head.

“Would you like to learn?”

The monkey considered this, before nodding enthusiastically.

Mary pushed her laptop to the side with relief. The grant could wait.

When Mary left to grab some milk from the corner shop forty-five minutes later she left him writing contentedly, with an air of extreme concentration. On the fridge, in the bottom corner of a drawing of Marisa, Mary and the monkey were two letters: O Z.

She returned to screaming.

She scrambled to get her key in the lock and threw open the door.

Marisa turned towards her, eyes deranged.

“Drop him!” Mary shrieked.

“You don’t understand-” Marisa argued, sounding slightly short of breath.

“Drop him now!”

Marisa growled and pulled her hand back from where she had been holding Oz against the wall by his throat, choking him.

Oz let out a whimper as she released him, hitting the floor awkwardly and scampering over to Mary, not managing to escape the kick that the Marisa aimed at him as he fled. Mary dropped the shopping she’d been holding and scooped Oz up, drawing him close to her chest protectively.

“What the hell was that, Marisa!?” she demanded, feeling Oz shaking in her arms.

“None of your concern,” Marisa snapped.

“Really? Because I care about both of you, so that does make-”

“Just stop it Mary, stop involv-”

“No!” Mary glared at her. “No, I won’t. Because I’ve known there’s been something wrong between you for quite some time now, but every. single. time. I have tried to bring it up with you have pushed me away or brushed me off and I am fed up with it. We are talking about this Marisa, and we are talking about it _now_.”

“Fine!” Marisa retorted, rolling her eyes. “But you might want to close the front door before you disturb the whole neighbourhood.”

Mary gritted her teeth and shoved it closed behind her.

“Look,” Marisa said, her features morphing into a mask of serenity. “This is between my daemon and I. We are part of each other, and thus this does not concern you.”

“See, that’s what makes it all the more concerning, actually. He is a part of you Marisa, and you can’t even be kind to him. And I know enough about how daemons work to know that hurting him hurts you. So, what are you doing, Marisa?”

Marisa glared murder at her. “Treating him how he deserves, obviously.”

Mary bit out a laugh. “See you’re not, not really. He’s been the sweetest, politest house guest, and I love spending time with him. What did he do this time? Break another mug?”

Marisa snarled. “I saw his writing on the table, ‘My name is Oz’ etcetera. He knows he has no right to that, he knows he has no right to be heard, and here you are, encouraging him!”

“And what’s so wrong with it, huh?” Mary demanded. “Why won’t you let him be happy, why won’t you let him communicate, why doesn’t he talk like all the other daemons do? What is the worst that could happen if you just let him be, let yourself be? I know you hurt yourself – I know the burn wasn’t an accident. But, Marisa, why, just tell me why so I can _help_ you!”

Marisa didn’t respond, she stared at Mary, as if she wasn’t really seeing her, shaking slightly.

Mary took a tentative step towards her, then another, then another, until she was close enough to wrap her into a gentle one-armed hug (the other still tightly curled around Oz).

“What are you doing?” Marisa whispered, seeming to come out of her reverie.

“Hugging you.”

“Why do you care? I’ll only hurt you. You shouldn’t care.”

“I just do.”

Mary felt Marisa’s arms wrapping cautiously around her, and she allowed herself to relax a bit.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go sit down on the sofa. We’ll wrap ourselves in the throw and we’ll talk about this.”

“Okay,” Marisa said, and allowed herself to be led into the living room.

It was as Marisa had suspected, lying on the sofa, snuggling into Mary’s arms, was very nice, very nice indeed.

It had been a month since Mary had caught her strangling Oz and things were getting better. It was a slow process, but life was improving.

Oz jumped up onto her lap and she pushed down the feelings of panic and revulsion, instead twisting round to look at Mary, who raised an eyebrow pointedly. Marisa turned and leant back against Mary, sighing, before reaching out a hand and gently stroking Oz. His apprehension turned into a warm feeling of contentment that she could feel through their bond.

She relaxed into it despite herself.

She felt something on the back of her head.

She froze. “Did you just kiss me?”

“I… uh… might have done…” Mary said, sounding flustered. “It’s just, I’m proud of you, how far you’ve come.”

“Oh,” Marisa said. Then added drily, “Well, I suppose it is hard to burn myself when you’ve taken all my candles away from me.”

“I’m being serious.”

“And hidden the alcohol.”

“Oh shush.”

Marisa let out a laugh. This last month had been strange to say in the least. Mary had put all her candles away, only allowing her access to them when she was in the room too, then she’d done something with the wine and the spirits. Then she’d spent hours on the internet looking up how to ‘de-cult’ someone and had been in the process of practically forcing Marisa into seeing a therapist. She had almost had to go through with that, with the plan of using the credit card that Boreal had given her instead of having to wait on the NHS, before Mary had decided that actually, a therapist might not be such a good idea. There were too many things that she couldn’t talk about in this world.

Instead, Mary had decided to organise counselling sessions between Marisa and Oz, with herself as the mediator. Marisa thought that if she had to do another activity with her monkey again she might go mad, but she had to admit that it was helping, and maybe she was working through some of her issues.

“Uh Marisa,” Mary said.

“Yes?”

There was a period of silence.

“Why did you flirt with me at the beginning?”

“What makes you think I was flirting?”

“Everything. Life experience. Why were you?”

“Maybe I wanted to,” Marisa replied, tone casual, as she continued to card her fingers though Oz’s fur.

“Why did you stop?”

Marisa paused and then turned round to stare at her.

“Have you been drinking our alcohol without me?”

“Maybe,” Mary replied, not meeting her eyes. “Okay yes! We were discussing the ethics of religion and murder forty-five minutes ago – maybe I needed one!”

Marisa tilted her head in acquiescence.

“Why did you stop?”

“It was better that way.”

“Was it?”

Then, maybe because Mary was staring tipsily at her lips, maybe because Oz was urging her on through their connection, maybe because for once in her life she felt almost safe, she gave into her impulse to press her lips against Mary’s.

Mary kissed back and it was better than it had been in the short periods she had allowed herself to imagine, before pushing her thoughts back, locking them away.

Too soon it was over.

Then it hit her.

She should not have done that. No good would ever come of it. She had ruined everything.

“Shit, I shouldn’t have done that,” Mary said, and Marisa jolted back, surprised to hear her thoughts echoed back at her. “You’re still healing, still working though your issues, I’m taking advantage, you’re not ready for-”

“What if I am?” Marisa shot back, bristling. “What if it’s what I want?”

Mary stared into her eyes and Marisa looked fiercely back at her. “Then, I suppose, that’s okay then.”

“Good,” Marisa said.

“Good,” Mary echoed. Then she laughed. “God, what are we doing?”

“I’m pretty sure what Oz wants us to do. What you want. What I want.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

With that said Mary leaned forwards and Marisa met her in the middle.

The kiss was even better the second time around.

Oz snuck out of the room and quietly pushed the door closed behind him. He padded over to the climbing frame that Mary had erected for him in the kitchen and swung his way up to the top. Then he settled down with his coloured pens and allowed himself to relax.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) As some of you probably guessed the idea of Mary sticking Oz's drawings up on the fridge came from @catshapedheart's very adorable and far less angsty drawings on twitter https://twitter.com/catshapedheart/status/1338230179446054913?s=20 This adorable tweet has been living in my head rent free since December 13 tbh
> 
> 2) I really hope you guys liked that!  
> Please drop a comment if you feel able - it would make my week!  
> Considering writing a part two in which Marisa heals more and Oz starts to talk again - what do you guys think?
> 
> I'm in the process of translating this into French, as French is my second language if anyone could beta for me I would love you so much and be forever in your debt! I plan to make each scene an individual chapter for ease of translation.
> 
> Right, now I am off to check out all the Maryisa content I'm behind on!
> 
> (If you'd like to follow me on tumblr I'm Stardustloki. If you'd like to check out my other stuff on AO3 I've written for the MCU, Dr Who, and Humans. If you're still waiting on me to update A Quiet Normal Life, I'm sincerely sorry, I am depressed and trying my best, I hope to have something written before the holidays end.)


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